The battles of YouTube Ads are not won today by men with the largest forces.

Sure they can spend a lot more than you, but that doesn’t mean they are going to win.

YouTube ads have changed and they can be tested in a couple of weeks. There is no long waiting—no serious uncertainty—no drawn-out period when expense overtops result.

One gets his answer immediately. The YouTube campaign is based on exact information that you can see right in your Analytics and Adwords accounts.

What you do in 1 state can be one is all 50, and the views and click will be in proportion to your test states. The law of average is sure. When you expand, you will be spending your money on absolute certainty.

Let’s do a quick recap before we check out whats new.

TrueView ads

TrueView ads can be skipped after five seconds—so it’s important that your video is done correctly and will capture attention in the first 5 seconds. Unless you’re optimizing based on action or reach (more on that below), you only have to pay for these ads when the viewer watches 30 seconds or more, which makes them a pretty safe bet for advertising on a budget.

TrueView ads have two formats, In-Stream ads and Discovery ads. Here’s the differences:

In-streamPlay before a video

DiscoveryShow up in search

Here’s what’s new with YouTube.

TrueView For Action

“Soon you’ll be able to reach people on YouTube who recently searched for your products or services on Google. For example, an airline could reach people on YouTube who recently searched Google.com for “flights to Hawaii.” We call this custom intent audiences. Custom intent audiences can be an effective way to move undecided customers to action using the persuasive power of video. To get started, all you have to do is create a keyword list for your video campaign in the new AdWords experience.”

Here’s a simple video tutorial where you can see how to set up a TrueView For Action video campaign.

TrueView For Reach

If you are looking to build brand awareness and increase market penetrations, you may want to look at TrueView for reach.

I would not recommend it because I think TrueView for Action Ads are better.

Actually…

I know they are better.

YouTube Video Ad Reach Planner Tool

One of the big problems with YouTube ads are the unknown. They lack transparency but they are changing. Google has launched the do Reach planner tool.

“Starting today, we’ve made it easier to answer questions like these by introducing Reach Planner, a new tool in AdWords. Now, for the first time, advertisers can forecast the reach and frequency achievable on YouTube and across Google’s video partners, in over 50 countries. This resource will simplify the planning process by providing unique reach across devices, for all core audiences and video formats.

Please for all things practical get on this and start running ads. If you need help, that is what we are here for. Contact us and we would be happy to create a killer YouTube Ad Campaign that will get you more sales, leads, and traffic.

It’s has been extremely stressful few weeks for everyone. It’s a battle out there. Keep up the great work. This last month we have been all over the place. We shot videos in Phoenix and Baltimore, I spoke at Las Vegas Pubcon on Video Marketing and Lead generation, and Taylor may have found a girl…lol

I want to go over a couple of things and give you some tools to help with some of your clients messaging.

I have mentioned this before, but I think it is important that I go back over it. We have to keep things simple. Our clients tend to want to complicate their message which causes customer confusion.

Less is more. We are seeing that people are browsing sites. If you have a large paragraph on your website, it’s most likely getting skipped.

Every message must be simple and clear. Every website should have a clear call to action and some type of offer. There’s a proven system behind everything that we do.

The message needs to be directed to the customer and hit on their pain points. We want to make it clear and simple as possible.

Once you have created a clear and simple message you can move onto the offer.

Today I was looking at the websites of some of the clients and very few of them had an offer. Let’s get that fixed.

They all need an offer.

Here is a little tool to help you. It’s from Donald Miller at Storybrand. I recommend reading his book.

This is going to be the first of many infographics that are going to help your business. Since we love Video Marketing we shall start there. Feel free to make companies and share this with everyone. Enjoy! (more…)